


Matt Murdock: A Study

by happybeans



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Columbia - Freeform, Comedy, Foggy Nelson POV, Friendship, Gen, Law School, Sickfic?, for like a minute - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happybeans/pseuds/happybeans
Summary: There’s something off about Foggy’s roommate, and he’s going to figure out what it is.“Foggy started to scribble out a list: ‘Proof that Matt Murdock is a Mind-Reader.’”
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 133
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Matt Murdock: A Study

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brittlestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlestars/gifts).



> This story is a gift for brittlestars based off their prompts, "...Sometimes Matt just 'knows things'..." and outsider/supporting cast POV! I had a ton of fun writing this, so I hope you enjoy!

So here’s the thing: Foggy doesn’t know too much about blind people—so he could be wrong!—but he’s pretty sure they shouldn’t be able to sense...well...everything.

Look, Matt said it himself one slightly-drunken night, when Foggy asked:

“No, no,” he said from his side of the room, smile as floppy as the hand he threw out in some semblance of a gesture. “When you lose one sense, the other don’t magically get better; you just focus on them more.”

Which is fair. But! Matt’s did magically get better. But, okay, we’ll get there. 

The first thing that tipped Foggy off to the fact that something is very amiss was—well, he’ll just show you. Strap in because this story is—probably not that crazy. But look! Don’t look away; by the end, you’ll be convinced, too.

So, the story. Here goes:

It was year one of law school, and a few months had passed since their fated first meeting. You know the one; Foggy doesn’t have to relive his awkward gayness.

By this point, Foggy and Matt had become fast friends. They’d laughed. They’d cried (okay, Foggy cried, but Matt came close once). They’d passed their semester one finals.

Everything was going well. They learned how to relax around one another, and how to be themselves. 

Alright, enough set-up. Here’s what happened:

Foggy came home from the library, and Matt was already in the dorm-room, hands running over his braille textbook (singular, since apparently just the one came in print format instead of just ebook). 

Foggy was rocking out to—unimportant; it was just a phase, okay?—on his Ipod, with earbuds, and he sat down in bed to dick around on the internet. It was maybe five minutes deep into the evening when Foggy noticed it: Matt was singing along.

Foggy pulled out an earbud—which the music was definitely playing through; he wasn’t accidentally playing it out loud—and found that, okay, Matt wasn’t quite singing along, more like mouthing along, and two, he actually could hear the music just a little with the earbuds out.

“Sorry, dude,” Foggy said, laughing off his confusion. “Didn’t realize how loud my music was.”

Matt smiled at him, unstressed. “I don’t mind,” he said.

Foggy turned the music down anyway, and he assumed that was it.

But no, not really. Matt was mouthing along again just minutes later.

To test, Foggy turned the volume down, all the way to its lowest setting. There. Now Foggy, himself, could barely even hear it.

A couple of songs later: Matt was still. mouthing. along.

Bullshit. Foggy pulled out both earbuds: not a cricket could be heard.

Foggy eyed Matt suspiciously.

“Are you reading my mind?” Foggy thought really hard towards him.

Matt didn’t so much as blink.

Foggy started to scribble out a list:

Proof that Matt Murdock is a Mindreader

  * Hears my music even when it’s really quiet
  * Somehow always knows when I’m upset?
  * Knows when I’m lying about studying or other such bs
  * he keeps looking at me as I write this??



“You doing okay over there?” Matt asked just as Foggy scrambled out that last part.

“Yeah! Why?”

Matt shrugged, awkwardly smiling. “I don’t know. I’m just feeling a little off.”

Right below his list, Foggy wrote:

Proof that Matt Murdock is an Empath

He promptly scribbled that out because he was not ready to confront the infinite possibilities that would open up.

Maybe it’s not the craziest story, but it’s an important one: that was the day Foggy realized that something was off about Matt.

Obviously, that wasn’t the only incident. More than anything, Matt seemed to just know things.

It was so bizarre, and maybe a little creepy: it seemed like even when Matt wasn’t there, he always knew what was going on in Foggy’s life. 

But it didn’t seem like a stalker situation—Foggy knows that’s what you’re thinking. No, because, first of all, Matt’s not exactly inconspicuous; between the devilishly good looks and the five-foot cane, it’d be a shock if you managed to miss him in a room. So he wasn’t just lurking, Foggy’s sure he would have noticed it. And in that same vein, it’s unlikely that he had some elaborate camera system or something because, uh, hello, blind. How could he watch the cameras? Foggy’s a dumbass for even considering that one.

So what it came down to? Either Matt had some underground tunnel system that he was stalking Foggy through or there was something else at play. 

Something more...mystical. Because when Foggy really started to think about it, when he drew it all out and started making the connections between everything, he realized something: every weird detail that Matt knew was something he could find out through his senses...in theory.

Some of it was easy to rationalize. So Matt could smell the fact that Foggy had onions on his sandwich for lunch. Big deal! It’s perfectly reasonable—okay, mostly reasonable—that Matt could smell them from across the room. Whatever. 

A little more difficult to accept: Matt was the one who found Foggy’s phone that he lost half-way across campus. Weird, but Foggy won’t be ableist. Maybe Matt felt it with his cane. Maybe he heard it vibrate from a call or text. Maybe...whatever. It’s plausible, right?

Then we get to the downright impossible. This one… This one was the one that took Foggy’s brain and broke it in half.

“Ah, shit!” 

He’ll be honest: the staircase felt better when it was just the bottoms of his feet touching it. Taking a full-body tumble? Not so fun. Thankfully, he was close to the bottom, so he didn’t fall down flight-after-flight; it was more like a few concrete steps that hurt his feelings more than anything else.

Aside from his palms, that is. Yeah, his palms got scraped to shit as he caught himself on the sidewalk. 

Still, as he dusted himself off and checked on his thankfully-uncracked phone, he considered how things could’ve ended up worse. 

He made his way back to the dorm-room after putting himself back together, planning on cleaning himself up in the bathroom once he got back. 

The second he walked through the door, though…

Matt’s head whipped up, eyes wide. “Are you bleeding? Why are you bleeding?”

Foggy, brain stuck on the long computer start-up, just stood there as Matt rushed over, crowding around him and reaching out. 

“How do you know I’m bleeding?” he managed to get out, staring intently at Matt’s eyes. 

Matt heated up. After just a split-second’s hesitation, he said: “I can smell it on you. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Foggy said, taking a minute step back. 

Matt stepped back, too. Nodding his head, he said, “I have a first-aid kit. Let me…”

Watching as he spun around and dug said first-aid kit out from under his bed, Foggy considered what Matt said. He could smell blood? That’s horrifying…

After patching him up, Matt went back to bed. 

And that was that. Foggy didn’t have it in him to ask the nine-thousand questions the moment brought forth in his mind. Instead, he laid in bed, thinking about his list(s) and added a new one:

Proof that Matt Murdock has Super-Smell

  * onions
  * He can smell blood?!



The point of all of this is that Foggy was on the right track, he realizes in retrospect. No, he didn’t have the complete story nailed down, but he’d at least somewhat considered the possibility of what he would come to know. Maybe that’s why what came next wouldn’t be as big of a shock as it could have been.

They finished off their first year and managed almost halfway through their second. They spent the summer together at Foggy’s parents’ house, after literal months of pestering from Foggy’s end, then Thanksgiving break. 

Finals were starting to come up, and about every waking moment was spent studying. That’s probably why Foggy missed what was happening until it was too late.

“Dude…” he said, wincing in sympathy.

Matt choked out a series of coughs into the corner of his elbow. It sounded wet and painful. 

“I’m good,” he claimed, voice hoarse and cracking. “It’s nothing.”

Foggy’s wince remained.

“Seriously,” Matt said, as though he could see the wince on Foggy’s face. 

That was another story; Foggy did consider the possibility that Matt might actually not be blind, but he had officially ruled that one out. This could prove the empath theory, though.

“If you say so,” Foggy said in response, because he really didn’t know what else to say. Besides what he’d been saying for two days now, that is. “The cough syrup and tylenol are on your nightstand. Still.”

“Thank you, Foggy,” Matt said, voice dull with the rote response. 

Foggy was done with this conversation, too, after having had it time after time by this point. Still, he said his line:

“Anytime, man. You know, they might help.”

“I don’t take medicine,” Matt explained yet again, and he turned over in bed, signaling the end of the conversation.

Foggy’s a fool, and he let himself be convinced by Murdock’s acting skills. He’d always been a bit of a worry-wart by nature, anyways. Everything was probably fine.

Foggy would eat those words.

Unlike every cold Foggy had ever had, Matt’s “cold” only got worse as the day went on. By that time the next day, things were...bad.

“Sitting on my chest,” Matt mumbled—ugh, wheezed, more like. 

Brushing the hair off Matt’s sweaty forehead, Foggy cringed when he felt how hot Matt was—this time literally.

“Who is?” Foggy mumbled back, absently, thinking about thermometers (maybe the RA had one somewhere?) and hospitals.

More mumbling followed, mostly incoherent. 

“Your fever feels really high, buddy,” Foggy said as he pulled back.

“Shhhh…”

“Did you just shush me?” 

It was mainly a joke, but Matt took it seriously.

“You’re so loud,” he rasped. “Everything’s so loud.”

“Tylenol?” Foggy offered, hopefully.

Matt didn’t even respond. Not that Foggy was too surprised by that.

He was surprised when, just as Foggy was about to get up, Matt started talking.

“Medications, it—they—” He raised up his hand, making vague gestures—“jumble everything up. Make it confused.”

Foggy blinked, eyebrows coming together. “Jumble what up?”

Gesturing some more, Matt said, “You know.”

The urge to laugh was too great. So Foggy did. 

“Actually, I don’t,” he said. 

“We’re in a dream, right?”

Uhhh…

Matt continued, “I know this isn’t real.”

One of Foggy’s hands moved to rub Matt’s arm. “It’s real, buddy,” he said.

Matt just shook his head. “If you say so.”

By some luck, Matt managed to fall back asleep. Foggy took this as a good thing. The guy could use some rest.

He didn’t even notice when Matt woke up next until he heard Matt start talking:

“Don’t…”

“Matt, you’re dreaming,” Foggy whispered back to him. Still, he sat up in bed, feet moving over the side to touch the floor. 

“No, you,” Matt groaned. Foggy was about to laugh at that comeback when Matt said: “The Cheetos. Put them away.”

Foggy looked down at the bag in his hands. He had just been about to rip it open. He looks back at Matt’s back. Back at the bag. Back at Matt.

“How did you know I had these?” he asked.

Matt rolled over to face Foggy, saying, “The bag. It crinkles.”

Hmm…

“I can put them in a bowl,” Foggy offered. He even stood up to find one, but Matt said:

“No, do not. Keep that thing closed. The smell…”

“Bullshit. You cannot smell it from there.”

Scoffing, Matt said, “I can smell it from across the street, Foggy.” 

Slowly, silently, Foggy started pulling the bag open, just a hair. 

“Ugh, Foggy, why?”

“You did not hear me open it!”

“Shh. Jeez.” Matt rubbed a hand over his face. “This is the worst dream ever.”

“Not a dream.”

“Whatever you say, Dream Foggy.”

“Don’t call me ‘Dream Foggy.’ I’m a real boy.”

Matt just hummed. 

Foggy pulled the bag the rest of the way open, staring at Matt’s face of disgust. 

“So, let’s say this is a dream.” Foggy’s heart was racing as he took a shot in the dark. “Would you admit to being a mind-reader if it was?”

Okay, so Foggy’s guess was a little off. It’s not like the idea was that far off from the truth, though.

Matt’s mouth formed an “O.” He laughed. “What?”

“I know there’s something up with you,” Foggy said, “so spill the beans. What is it? Mind-reading? Empath powers? Alien?”

“Yes, Foggy, I am an alien,” Matt said. He laughed some more. “This dream is something else.”

“Come on, Matt, just say it.”

“You’re my own brain. You already know.”

“Say it anyway.”

With a shrug, Matt said, “Super-senses. I’m going back to sleep.”

“You’re already asleep. Super-senses?”

“Hmm.” Matt looked confused. “Good point.”

He rolled back over, and Foggy was left deciding whether he was going to push the topic or not. He didn’t; Matt needed the sleep. And he would only get worse over the passing days. 

In the end, turns out Matt had pneumonia and was out-of-his-mind delirious from his fever. Oh, well. At least Foggy managed to drag him to the hospital before the guy could completely keel over.

Aaaaaaand that brings us to now, with Sleeping Beauty sleeping off his sickness while Foggy spends his time in the waiting room piecing together everything he knows.

Super-senses. As he puts together all the little pieces of the puzzle that is his best friend, he decides that it honestly makes a lot of sense. Super-senses. Huh. 

At the end of the day, Foggy knows he should have guessed something like that. He always just assumed Matt was super progressive whenever the topic of mutant and human-mutate rights came up in class. He probably should have known from the way Matt defended them that there was something personal there. 

He should’ve known from the day Matt casually brought up the “loud construction” going on nine blocks away. 

He should’ve known. 

But what matters is that he knows now. 

Actually, something else might matter more. 

Matt wakes up for the first time since getting to the hospital, and that… That’s an experience none of them are going to forget anytime soon. 

————————

Time passes them by. After calming Matt down, Foggy makes the decision to keep quiet on the matter, at least for the time being. The guy’s sick; he needs to recover. 

He manages to hold off until a few days after Matt gets released. 

“So.” His voice is high and strung tight. “I was wondering: what do you remember from before we went to the hospital?”

Matt shrugs, tilting his head. “Not much. What’s up?”

Foggy hums. Then he hums again. “So. Well. You may have said some things, and I wanted some clarification.”

Face going blank, Matt says, “Oh? You know, I was pretty out of it, Foggy…”

“Sure.”

“This would never hold up in court.”

Matt cracks a smile, and Foggy laughs with him. 

“Fair point,” Foggy concedes. “Still…”

Rolling his eyes, Matt says, “Alright, what’s up?”

“Well,” Foggy hedges slowly, “you may have sorta…you know...mentioned that you have super-senses.”

The look on Matt’s face. Foggy will try to describe it: wide eyes, smile frozen, cheeks pink. 

After just a second, Matt unfreezes, acts casual. “That’s pretty funny,” he says with a chuckle. 

“Is it, now?”

“Well, sure,” Matt says. He acts like he’s confused, but Foggy knows he’s faking it; his head doesn’t tilt with it. “What, you think I was serious? That’s impossible, Fogs.”

“It’s completely possible,” Foggy argues. Ask him four years ago and he might have said otherwise, but with all the things going on in the world these days…

“Yeah, I guess, but come on. This is crazy, Foggy.”

“So you’re saying you don’t have superpowers,” Foggy clarifies. 

“Exactly.”

“And you’re not lying right to my face. Because I’ve never lied to you about something big like this, Matt. This is kind of serious.”

Matt’s quiet for a second. The smile is gone from his face. It returns after a moment. 

“You caught me,” he says, voicing it like a joke. “I have superpowers.”

Foggy eyes him for a second. He can’t help smiling along. This is such a Matt way to play things. 

“You’re bluffing,” Foggy says. “I know you actually do.”

With a shrug, Matt says, “Sure. I do.” Still, his time of voice implies that it’s all just a big joke. 

“One of these days, I’m gonna get you, Murdock,” Foggy says, unable to help joining in on the joke. “I’m gonna catch you in the act.”

Matt’s true grin comes back. “Whatever you say, Fogs.”

He’s insufferable. He’s Matt. 

Foggy grins back. 

“Challenge accepted.”


End file.
